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Nuclear power could more than triple by 2060, UN agency says (apnews.com)
submitted 7 hours ago by to c/news@lemmy.world
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The head of the U.N. nuclear agency said Friday that he expects the use of nuclear power could more than triple by 2060.

Rafael Grossi said in the International Atomic Energy Agency’s annual report to the U.N. General Assembly that this will be driven by electrification, data centers powered by artificial intelligence and “technology companies’ appetite for reliable, carbon-free power.”

Nuclear energy is seen by a growing number of countries as key to improving their energy security, he said, stressing that it is on par with solar energy and “safer than every other option.”

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[–] 3 points 7 hours ago (3 children)

Get off your high horse and replace coal and gas with nuclear if that's what gets us off fossil fuels

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  • [–] 6 points 5 hours ago

    I'm not anti-nuclear by a longshot

    But I think the time to be building new nuclear plants was probably 20 years ago and that window has kind of passed.

    The unfortunate truth is nuclear plants take a long time to get approval, build, and start generating electricity for the grid, and there's only so much you can or should do to try to speed that process up, because if you cut too many corners the potential for things to go wrong is enormous.

    Solar and wind can be deployed a lot faster and we need that grid capacity now and at this point I think we'd probably be better served by building out as much solar and wind as we possibly can

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  • [–] 11 points 6 hours ago

    With how cheap solar has become, there's no reason for major fossil fuel using countries with plentiful land like China or the U.S. to choose nuclear over it. Wind is a greater investment than solar, but still far cheaper than building a nuclear power plant and without the need to store waste in a long-term manner afterwards.

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  • [–] 8 points 6 hours ago

    But nobody is replacing coal and gas with nuclear because it's total economic insanity. What they do instead is talking about replacing it with nuclear soon™, so they can ignore renewables and burn some more of those tasty fossil fuels.

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